“My love for you is photosensitive, you know?”
He looked puzzled at her, then slowly started to shake, low rumble-like laughter escaped his lips, graduating into a full throated guffaw.
“O my God! Mahi, you are unbelievable!”
“Really.” She was laughing too. “Look, I love you more in early mornings, just when dawn is breaking and in the evening twilight hours, when all goes still and if it is full moon, I love you truly when it rises big and yellow. I love you more in the moonlight, or before a thunderstorm when heavy, grey clouds turn the day into pre-dawn darkness. That is when my heart yearns to be by your side.”
“And what about afternoons or sunny days?”
“Hmmm….not much, actually. In fact, I hate you on summer afternoons.”
“So you also hate me?”
“No. I love you, mostly. It is just that my love for you is inversely proportional to the brightness of light. For example: If there are lots of moving, running, rotating lights in a party, it makes me feel unpleasantly restless.”
“And what else affects your love for me?”
“Sound. Its loudness and pitch. Amplitude and frequency.”
“How is that related?” He looked bemused and curious, all at once.
“Inversely, this one too. The louder and sharper the sounds in the environment, the more crowded the sounds – noise, even if low – the less romantically inclined I am apt to be. In fact, with sound, I even love myself far less than normal.”
“Ha ha ha! And what about speed?”
“Inverse again. I like long, lingering drives. Walk instead of jog. Waltz instead of salsa. I like you best when you are your slow, lazy self. I really wonder if I chose you because of your indolence. Had you been like the RJs and the TV anchors with forced energetic cheer and frenetic pace, I would have avoided you like we avoid wet dogs!”
“What about drink?”
“Aha! Directly proportional. The more you are drunk, the more gallant becomes your attitude. The more drunk I am, the more I insist I love you. I go completely, unreasonably pig-headed in my single minded determination to prove my love for you!”
“That you do! We are now in the positive zone where love goes! Thank Galileo or better still; thank dear Einstein!”
“He he he! Right you are! God has no role in this love story. This chemistry between us, is actually pure physics.”
“And?”
“And fragrance. The opening of night flowers on summer evenings, the wafting of green fragrances after the rains on the Easterly winds, the Purvayi, makes me fall in love with life and with you all over again.”
“Hmm….and sleep; considering you are such a sleepy head? ”
“Yes, sleep. When you sleep against my back, hugging me or let me sleep on your shoulder, just happy to be there; when we wake up together in the dead of the night, relaxed and at peace, love rises like a flood in me. That is when I love you most, I think.”
“Yes, that I know.” He paused to look at her face, calm and composed, yet her eyes as always, aglint with mischief. He burst out laughing.
“Yours must be the funniest Love in the world! Gosh! You are soooo funny! And you are the best when you are funny and serious at once!”
She clapped both her hands on the mouth and shook with mirth. It was a few moments before she regained her breath to ask, “And your love for me? What is it proportional to?”
“This is no brainer! No physics, no chemistry, just plain syntax. What love? Did I ever say anything like my love for you?”
“Ha ha ha..!”